Calcite (classic material)

Item Description

A beautiful old-time Calcite specimen from the historic Samson Mine in St Andreasberg. This locality is famous for a wide range of fine quality minerals, including the incredibly rare and highly sought after silver manganese antimony sulfosalt, Samsonite! This particular specimen is one of the finest Calcites that we've ever had to offer from this locality, as it is not only excellent quality, but it's showy, aesthetic and a full sized cabinet to boot! The pieces hosts many robust hexagonal crystals with excellent internal gemminess and a soft golden hue, but they have the characteristic "white caps", that are known from this mine. They actually remind me of the contemporary Calcites from Fuzichong, China (https://www.mindat.org/loc-186997.html). The piece is in very good condition, as most of the Calcites are virtually undamaged, though one crystal on the edge is incomplete, as part of the lower half was unfortunately contacted and broke away. It's still a top notch display specimen, and certainly one of the best we've ever had to offer from this historic locality. Additionally, if you flip the piece over, you'll see some angular "casts", which are likely replacing preexisting crystals of Anhydrite. The piece was almost certainly mined in the mid 1800s, like nearly all of the specimens you'll see from this locality, and the Samson Mine closed in 1910, so the piece is well over a century old at the least. I would put a value on this one in the $3,000-$3,500 range for the superb quality, displayability and size. From the collection of Kurt Hefendehl (#196 D), a well-known German collector all over Europe with worldwide contacts to dealers and collectors. He started collecting seriously at the age of 14 and his great and varied worldwide collection reached over 6000 pieces. He was very active mineralogically until shortly before his passing in 2020 at the age of 82. Considering his collection had a large number of pieces, it still had an unusually high standard of quality from most worldwide localities. He particularly specialized in all classics as well as minerals of the Black Forest, where he spent much time collecting. His Black Forest and German subcollections went to his good friend Wolfgang Wendel. We at The Arkenstone have the privilege of offering the remainder of this great worldwide collection over the next two to three years through our various platforms.